New Mexico Public Employees Retirement Association, Santa Fe, committed $225 million to five new alternative investments, LeAnne Larranaga-Ruffy, head of alpha, reported to the investment committee Thursday.
Officials of the $17.1 billion pension plan committed $75 million to Ardian Americas Infrastructure Fund V and an additional $25 million for a co-investment vehicle that will invest parallel other Ardian funds.
The pension plan also committed $60 million to Orchid Asia VIII, a private equity fund making active minority investments in China and managed by the Orchid Asia Group. In addition, the pension plan committed $15 million to a discretionary co-investment vehicle that would invest along side the fund on a no-fee, no-carry basis, Ms. Larranaga-Ruffy said. Orchid is a new relationship for the pension plan.
Further, New Mexico PERA committed $50 million to Hellman & Friedman Capital Partners X, a North America and Europe large-cap buyout fund.
Pension officials also made a total of $170 million in additional investments to six hedge funds:
- $40 million in Glazer Enhanced Fund, a merger arbitrage hedge fund managed by Glazer Capital.
- $35 million to Marshall Wace Eureka Fund, a multistrategy long-short hedge fund.
- $35 million to Garda Fixed Income Relative Value Opportunity Fund, a fixed income arbitrage hedge fund managed by Garda Capital Partners.
- $30 million to PAG Asia Opportunity Fund.
- An additional $15 million each to Systematic Alternative Markets Fund, a commodity trading adviser hedge fund managed by Systemica Investments and Dorsal Capital Fund, an equity long-short hedge fund managed by Doral Capital Management.
Separately, pension officials paused additional commitments to its portable alpha strategy to provide the investment committee more information on the strategy, said Kristin Varela, interim CIO, also at Thursday's investment committee meeting.
"We are taking a cautious approach" and taking a step back to make sure the committee is more comfortable with the portable alpha strategy, Ms. Varela said.
During the hiatus, staff will work to ensure the pension plan isn't taking on "significant concentration risk." Staff will not making further commitments during the education period unless "an area of concentration has been identified."
The pension plan had $5.3 million in portable alpha.
